1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to computer peripherals and more particularly to a bracket assembly which slides into and out of electrical equipment such as computers or shoe boxes or enclosures for computers, and more particularly to a bracket assembly which can accept a variety of different sized electrical devices having a variety of different electrical configurations.
2. Previous Art
The personal computer has gone through an incredible transformation since its inception in the early 1970's. For example, the original IBM PC used an Intel 8086 microprocessor and had only a single low density floppy drive of 360 kilobytes storage capacity, a RAM capacity of 64 kilobytes, and a 13" mono-chrome display terminal. Later, faster and better microprocessors were develop including the 8088, the 80286, the 80386 and currently the 80486.
Faster and increased memory storage capacity was developed by the addition of a hard disk drive assembly and greater RAM (today 8 megabytes is not uncommon). The original hard disk drive assembly typically had a capacity of 20 megabytes with 40 megabytes being state of the art. Currently, a typical hard disk drive assembly will be at least 100 megabytes and it is not uncommon for the hard disk drive of even a typical office user to have a capacity of 500 megabytes or even one or more giga-bytes.
Greater capacity floppy disk drives were concurrently developed with the hard disk drive assembly. While the original floppy disk drive typically had a capacity of only 360 kilobytes, later floppy disk drives had capacities of 720 kilobytes and 1.2 megabytes. Currently, there is a floppy disk drive having a capacity of 2.88 megabytes. These greater capacity floppy disk drives are smaller and faster than the original.
One very important reason for having a floppy disk drive was to be able to transfer computer work product from one user to another electronically rather than via hard copy. This saved the users time and money and increased their efficiency and output. The work product would not have to be re-created over and over again. The users simply added their modifications to the computer work product until the project was complete.
As can well be appreciated, the users were limited only by the capacities of the floppy disk drive. Additionally, since the speed of the floppy disk drive is far less than the hard disk drive, it is desirable to be able to exchange hard disk drives rather than only floppy disk drives.
As an alternative to the high cost of a main frame computer and the lower capabilities of the PC, work stations such as the Sun and others were developed. The work station operates at a far greater speed and capacity than the PC and in some cases approaches the smaller main frames. The price of the work station is closer to the PC than the main frame.
The speed, capacity and capabilities of both the PC and the work station are continuing to increase at a dramatic rate even at this time. As a result, there are many more serious users of such electrical equipment requiring the need to exchange not only floppy and hard disk drives, but other electrical devices, such as memory storage devices. Such devices include tape drives, digital tape drives, optical disk drives and the like.
Such users are finding it more and more desirable to exchange their work product via a memory storage device, just as was once done with main frame computers. It is now not uncommon for a user of a work station (or for that matter a PC) to have multiple memory storage devices. One such way of having multiple memory storage devices is to use a "shoe" box. A "shoe" box is understood by those skilled in the art to be an enclosure wherein such multiple memory storage devices may be housed and electrically connected together and to the host computer.
Removal and replacement of electrical devices, such as memory storage devices must be done with great care. The installation and removal of such electrical devices can cause the electrical connections to become damaged beyond simple repair. An entire mother board or even controller may need to be replaced in order to repair such damage. Therefore, alignment of the connectors of different electrical devices must match exactly with the host computer or the shoe box.
It will be appreciated that not all electrical devices are physically of the same size. It is therefore desirable to have an assembly which facilitates the installation and removal of a large variety of different sized electrical devices. It is further desirable to have such a device which is easy to use and makes the installation and removal of such devices routine while not causing damage to either the electrical device or the electrical equipment.
Additionally, care must be taken to prevent the loss of data on such electrical devices, especially the memory storage devices. It is desirable to be able to stop the disk head of a hard disk drive assembly from spinning before removing the same. Currently, there exists a bracket assembly which allows the installation and removal of a certain limited number of hard disk drives, but fails to provide for stopping the head of a hard disk drive prior to removal. That device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,960,384. Additionally, U.S. Pat. No. 4,941,841 discloses a bracket assembly for the installation and removal of a hard disk drive which includes an electrical interrupt for removing a hard disk drive but does not provide a bracket assembly which can be used with a variety of memory storage devices.
In addition to being physically compatible with a wide variety of electrical devices, it would also be desirable for a bracket assembly to accommodate a wide variety of different electronic configurations that are present in electrical devices, such as memory storage devices. There is no known bracket assembly which includes a structure for accomplishing this.
Typically, a work station includes a SCSI bus. A SCSI bus can handle as many as eight concurrent SCSI devices. Each SCSI device must have a unique identification number to be recognized by the bus. Each SCSI device is connected to the bus by a data cable. The data cable includes data and the device identification number.
In order to set the identification number of the SCSI device, the user installs a plurality of jumpers on pins located on the logic board under the device. The user must then be able to adjust the jumpers according to the correct binary code or go to a remote location to set the SCSI identification number using a remote SCSI identification switch which has been connected to the identification pins on the logic board of the SCSI device using a cable.
It would highly desirable to be able to adjust the SCSI identification number on the bracket assembly without having to either adjust the jumpers on the bottom of the SCSI device or alternatively go to a remote place and then adjust the SCSI identification number. It would save time and eliminate confusion leading to configuration problems and in general allow the exchange or installation and removal of electrical devices to become routine.